


touch

by fromthehillbythelake



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 10:46:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5740735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fromthehillbythelake/pseuds/fromthehillbythelake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows how to make it quick, or how to leave you shattered, begging, pleading, for death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	touch

**Author's Note:**

> -just transferring from my tumblr, to here :)

...

 

He knows how to break bones with ease.  Whether it’s making a calculated blow or a casual flick of the wrist, no one’s ever stood a chance.  He knows how much blood a person needs to lose before they’re finished (2500mL give or take), he knows how much force it takes to dislocate a joint; he knows where to cut when he needs answers, and where to strike when he wants silence.   
  
He knows how to make it quick, or how to leave you shattered, begging, pleading, for death.  
  
And when the titans came, he knew it all too.  
  
Petra, however, has a far more dangerous weapon in her arsenal.  
  
His whole body seizes up when she touches a hand to his chest, laughing.  She removes it just as quickly, looking embarrassed, and he wants to kick himself because he wishes he could tell her that it wasn’t her fault (he’s just not used to it) without stumbling over the words.  
  
Touch had always been a means of getting something.  A meal, a target, submission (“ _There boy_ ,” Kenny’s ragged voice still echoes in his head, “ _do you see that man?”  Levi had nodded, and Kenny - his father - squeezed his shoulder in a vice grip, just to make sure Levi understood what would happen if he failed_.)  Occasionally, it meant a fuck.  Not really his choice when he was younger; he needed some food, he needed some information, and that man creeping in the alleyway needed some young little thing.  They always said how much they loved his mouth.  
  
Women said the same, and on those nights when he got desperate he’d pick up a rough little thing from a bar to hold, even if it was in the most primal way, just so that he could dull the ache of wanting, if only for a moment.  But that often left him even more weary of skin on skin than he had been in the first place.  And every woman he bedded (not many, but enough) made the word “ _Stay,_ ” closer to tumbling from his lips.  Not for love or the hope of it, but for comfort.  If only he could have five more minutes more of that.  
  
Later, he got used to it, at least in the way that requires a man to work in a team.  Or at least participate.  Touch, he learned, could be used to guide, to maneuver, to control.  To win.  And so it’s purpose became clearer: use it, by any means, to conquer.   
  
_SMACK.  He adjusts the angle of a recruit’s elbow, nodding as it falls into place._  
  
_Mike spins his blades beside him in perfect unison, and he nods when the taller man taps his blade to his in approval, both watching as the Titan falls._

 _Erwin’s hand resting on his shoulder becomes familiar, holds meaning;_  wait, _he comes to understand_ , wait.  
  
Words weren’t a talent of his to begin with, so touch became a useful means of communication too.   
  
You alright? _Hanji clocks him in the shoulder._  
  
Yeah, _he elbows them back._  
  
He fully jerked away the first time Petra reached for his hand, disgust and disdain clouding his features so that she wouldn’t try it again.  He didn’t need her pity and she didn’t deserve his baggage.  
  
He’d been beaten -  _down, up_ , and  _hard_  - left bloody and broken; a hollow shell of a human being with only hate to fuel him.  Most days it was difficult for him to reconcile his true face with the one he saw in the mirror, became almost impossible to remember that he was human at all.  

He’d stolen, cheated, _murdered_ with those hands, and the thought of her touching them, touching him…

But for all the pain he endured, for all the maiming and spraining and bruising he was responsible for, nothing quite destroyed him like the feeling of  _her_  eyelashes fluttering against his neck.  
  
His horse spooks one evening, unexpectedly, and he gets thrown back into a cart full of horse shit. 

His entire front is soiled - shit on his uniform, in his hair, underneath his fingernails, dripping down his blades - and he can feel the tension in the air as his subordinates try to hold in their laughter.

 

_“What was that?” Kenny sneered, pushing his head deeper into the animal shit.  "CAN’T HEAR YOU, BOY!“_

_He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, felt the shit seeping into his ears and clogging his nostrils._  
  
_"S-Stop!” Levi begged, trying not to let any chunks fall down his throat, as Kenny wrenched him back by his hair._  
  
_“Stop?” Kenny said politely, before slamming Levi’s head into the mess again._  
  
_He began to cry - wracking, painful sobs - which only seemed to anger Kenny further._  
  
_“This is your fault,” Kenny went on calmly.  "This is what happens when you fail me.“_

  
  
He struggles, white-hot with rage, clambering out of the cart with an urgency akin to madness.  
  
_Get me out of here, get me out of here, getmeoutofhere!_  
  
"Captain?” he thinks he hears a voice, but it doesn’t register as he storms over to Auruo - he’s closest - picks him up by the scruff of his neck, and starts violently shaking him.  
  
“You think this is funny?” Levi seethes with hate, shaking the man harder when he doesn’t answer.  
  
“ _You think this is fucking funny_?!” Levi spits, practically foaming at the mouth.  
  
“Captain!” Petra screams, dashing over and pushing him hard, making him stumble.  
  
Levi’s vision clears and his breathing slows and he counts to ten before wiping a hand under his nose and finally looking at each one of his squad members.  He feels their fear and guilt and pity before he quite realizes it was his own doing, which is enough to shake him.  
  
“I’m-” he grunts, beseeching Auruo most of all, “I’m sorry, I don’t…I don’t know why I…I’m sorry-”  
  
 And he leaves them, unable to bear the shame.

 

  
-x-

 

  
She finds him in the basement washing his uniform.  
  
The sink is full of water and it smells putrid, though not of shit.  Of too many cleaning products mixed together at once, of bleach and vinegar and God knows what else.  
  
Levi’s thrashing the clothes around like they’ve murdered his mother, his teeth grinding and neck pulsing and jaw snapping in frustration, and when Petra can’t bare to look at him anymore, she walks up beside him to help.  
  
“Stop!” he shouts, knocking her hands away before they can touch the water.  Petra’s about to punch him when she realizes that the water is steaming; looks down and sees Levi’s red and swollen fingers.  
  
“Captain-” she breathes, and Levi puts his hands on either side of the sink, shoulders hunched.  
  
“I’m fine.  Ral,” he says very quietly.  "Don’t worry about it.“  
  
Petra moves closer beside him.  
  
"I’m filthy,” he says, as if he’s talking to a child, but Petra reaches for his hands anyway.

“Don’t,” he warns this time, fiercely, turning his head away.  "I’m filthy.  I’m disgusting.“  
  
Petra’s never heard that inflection of tone from him.  
  
"I don’t mind the mess,” she says gently, proceeding to grab some nearby towels.

He knows it’s wrong, knows he should be telling her to get some sleep, but he allows her to take his hands anyway, allows her to run them under cold water until they become numb.  She watches him, he can see out of the corner of his eye, and he wonders what she’s thinking.  His hair is still wet from his shower (all 5…6 of them?), his eyes are red, and his heartbeat is staccato-ing, but she just keeps tending quietly to his hands.  

“Sorry…” he says, wanting to fill the silence.  It grates on his nerves and makes him sweat, and he doesn’t know how she bears it.

She wraps his hands with one of the towels.  "I don’t think you’ll be able to save the uniform, Captain,“ Petra gestures vaguely to the sink.  "I might be able to get some of it out, but I’m not sure-”  
  
“Petra I-,” Levi interrupts, grumbling.  "I’m…I mean I-“

"You should apologize to Auruo,” Petra looks at him.

Levi frowns, clicking his tongue.  "I know.“

"And to everyone else, too.”

Levi shifts uncomfortably.  "I know.“  
  
His hands are long dry, but Petra continues to hold them.  
  
"That was really scary today,” she whispers, finally looking at him.  His jaw clenches.  "What happened?“  
  
Levi smiles like the action breaks his skin.  "I hate dirt.”  
  
She doesn’t smile back, and he’s glad because maybe he’s fucked it up before it’s even started.

 

  
-x-

  
 

She’s sharpening her blades outside at the edge of the forest when he finds her, eyes flitting over him indifferently as he approaches.

She doesn’t speak, continues to stroke the metal pointedly which puts Levi on edge.  He waits, not wanting to say the wrong thing.  

“Are you going to just stand there all day, Captain?” she snaps from her seated position on the stump.    
  
_What the fuck do you want from me?_

“I could ask you the same thing,” he growls back.  
  
Petra rolls her eyes and _tsks,_ putting the one blade down to pick up another.  "Nevermind.  Just forget it.  Please.“  
  
"Forget what?” Levi scoffs bitterly.  "You’re being emotional for no fucking reason.“  
  
Petra takes a breath.  "There’s no use talking to you sometimes,” her voice is small and shaky and Levi resents her for what it does to his chest.  "This was a mistake.“  
  
His stomach drops and his heart pounds and his vision blurs as he demands: "What does that mean?”  
  
Petra shakes her head, stroking the blades harder, and Levi steps closer.  "What are you saying?“  
  
"Nothing,” her voice breaks, “just nothing.”

He hates words and their lethal connotations, hates their power over him, and how they cut deeper than any sword.  He doesn’t fear Titans, not in the way that he should, but he’s terrified of the way he aches for her lips, the way she tempts him to peel back his skin and show her his beating heart.  

 _Say something_.  He clenches his jaw.  
  
_Do something_.  He extends two fingers -  
  
He’s desperate now, watching the resignation seep into her shoulders, knowing she’s going to leave soon.  
  
He’s never cared for talking, never learned to touch, but he knows that if he can’t choose either, _now_ , he won’t get the chance again.  
  
“I don’t understand,” he says at last, utterly defenceless and vulnerable and raw as he fidgets in front of her.  "Please.  Just tell me what you need from me.  Just tell me what to do.  Please-“

She puts her hand against his thigh and he flinches, gasping unintentionally.  He leans into her as if she provides his lifeline (she does, she _does_ ), and he catches her smiling before his eyes fall closed.

"I need you to talk to me,” she murmurs, her fingers climbing up his front to grab his belt hilt.  "Tell me things.“  
  
He wants to tell her to save her breath, that wishing for such things from him is pointless, and that she’ll only exhaust herself.  
  
"And if you can’t…” she threads her fingers through his, locking them together.  
  
Her hands are warm and soft - _comforting_ \- and when she tenderly squeezes his palm, he finally understands.   


 

-x-

   


It’s hard to lie next to her, even harder to touch her, when he knows all the pulse points of the body, knows what bones you can’t un-break, knows how easily he could kill her with the hand resting against her neck right now…   
  
He leans down to press his lips to her forehead before he leaves, their morning ritual - if it’s not him skirting around the corridors to get back to his room, it’s her - but watching her chest rise and fall, the tiniest of smiles pulling at her lips, he thinks better of it.

 

  
-x-

   


She watches him from her perch on the windowsill, the flickering flames of candlelight bathing his angular features in a peculiar glow.  
  
“How many more?” she asks softly, her mind hazy.  
  
“Twenty five,” he grunts, frowning.  The bags under his eyes are deep and purple.  
  
She nods, yawning.  It continues like this for another half-hour her at the window and him at his desk - the sharp scratch of his scrawl becoming increasingly impatient.  
  
“Levi,” she hums, swinging her legs off the seat to come stand behind him.    
  
She places her hands on his shoulders, massaging and kneading them for several minutes until his breathing becomes so faint that she can barely hear it at all.  She then rests her chin in the jut of his neck, breathing against him softly, and continues to roll out the knots in his muscles.  He lets his head fall onto the desk, groaning, albeit appreciatively.  

“Almost done,” she murmurs, kissing the back of his neck.  
  
“Almost done,” he echoes, touching the pads of his fingers of his left hand to her knuckles.  


  
  
-x-

   


They’re waiting in the trees, as they have been all afternoon.  Levi watches her from his stoop on the upper branches, marvelling at the size of her, even from this distance.  
  
Pretty little thing she was, the girl Petra tried to save during the attack that morning.  She hasn’t said a word, not for several hours, and Levi wonders why this casualty has hit her so hard.  
  
They’re no strangers to blood and gore and violence.  Even more familiar with the loss and heartache left in it’s wake.  It’s nothing they haven’t seen before, nothing they won’t face again - the thought alone is enough to force a curse from his lips because she’s a soldier and she has to stop being so damn naive - but instead of biting out a scathing remark about ‘survival and it’s affair with reality’ as he normally would, he drops down swiftly beside her on the branch (making sure the rest of his squad isn’t watching as he turns the gas pedal), and looks straight ahead.  
  
Standing beside her is asking too much of the gods already, but he doesn’t falter as he touches the back of his hand to hers.

 

  
-x-

 

  
It’s 2am and she isn’t in their- _his_ bed, so he follows the ray of light peeking out from behind his bathroom door to find her - if she’s even there.  
  
She is, and he opens the shower after stripping off his gear, but she doesn’t give any inclination that she’s noticed him.   _She’s exhausted_ , he notes, hissing as his feet make contact with the tiles, and he closes the curtain behind them.

He reaches up to grab the shower head - she’s still leaning against the wall under the spray, eyes closed - and he brings it down directly over her head.  He wipes her hair back so it’s out of her face, and reaches with his other hand for the shampoo.  He rubs it into a lather, massaging her scalp until the suds disappear.  She lets out a contented murmur, and he keeps going until her cheek finds it’s way onto his shoulder.  
  
He puts the nozzle back, twisting so his right arm still clings around her back.  
  
“Soap,” he says low, grabbing it from the caddy.  He caresses her arms with it, swiping it across her shoulders, under her armpits, and down her back.  He’s inching toward her ass, hesitant, but she nods, squeezing him tighter.  He nudges her thighs apart slightly, reaching under the curve of her ass with his fingers.  He strokes her, careful not to slip any fingers inside cause of the soap.  
  
She hums, lifting her head up to kiss him and tightening her grip on his ass.    
  
“Your heart is beating really fast,” she smiles against his mouth.  
  
“Yeah,” he answers somehow, feeling light-headed.  
  
“Here,” she murmurs, reaching for the soap bottle, his erection poking against her stomach.  
  
She pushes him back against the tile wall and he lets his head fall back too as she starts to rub his chest.  She snakes her hands under his arms, sweeps them over his nipples, drags her fingers down down his stomach until they’re resting at the base of his cock.    
  
She doesn’t touch him until she’s washed the soap from her hands, taking in his blushed cheeks and open mouth as she starts to stroke him.  

It’s a symphony of limbs as they collide, breaths hot and heavy in each other’s lungs.  It’s desperate fumbling and longing glances, the water cold and soothing between their heated flesh.    
  
They make it to the sink - the angle too awkward and the floor too slippery inside the shower - and when Levi finally thrusts inside her, it’s like his skeleton cracks open to expose his beating heart.  It’s blissful oblivion, and he knows it’s the closest he’ll ever come to a religious experience.  
  
“I love you,” she pants, shuddering against him.  
  
And he holds her.

 

  
-x-

  
 

He’s absolutely furious - got a broken arm, broken ribs, and a punctured lung, so of course there’s no room for discussion - but he hates being forced to stay behind to heal while everyone else goes out on the expedition.  
  
_“There’s ink in my desk,” she says, almost knowingly.  "If you need it.“_  
  
_"I won’t,” he answers, bringing her palm to his lips._  
  
He unlocks her door - her ink writes better than his anyways - and he makes his way to her desk, opening the bottom drawer and pulling the vial out.  He toys with it in his fingers before yanking out the cork, placing it and his stack of papers on the wooden surface.  
  
He doesn’t know what he expected, but being in her room does nothing to calm him.  He’s going crazy, cooped up in these walls with no one to talk to and nothing to do and nowhere to go.  He hasn’t slept well, hasn’t eaten much really - she is going to berate him for that, he knows - is feeling caged and edgy and useless as he waits for them all to return, barely managing to pass the time by working out or caring for the horses.    
  
He promised himself that he wouldn’t go near her room - that lead to dangerous thoughts and prodded even more dangerous memories out of the recesses of his mind.    
  
But he didn’t need to avoid her room to feel how she lingered.  He smelled her everywhere: in the hallways, in the kitchen, by that spot outside she liked…and at night it got so bad that he had to leave his bed, her scent suffocating him as he moved beneath the sheets.   He wondered if it was real at all, if anyone else might be able to smell something…or maybe it was all in his head; a reminder of just how much he stood to lose.

He pushes the chair back from her desk, cursing Erwin and his paperwork, seriously tempted to steal some extra gear and his horse from the stables - consequences be damned - and join the rest of the Legion outside the walls.

 _Tch_.  
  
His eyes wander over the picture Petra has taped near her bed, one of her father and her in front of their house.  She’s wearing a dress and has her hair tied in a loose braid, all smiles and mischief and innocence.  Her father beams beside her, sort of misty-eyed, and the sun practically illuminates them.  His chest tightens uncomfortably, and he has to close his eyes.   
  
It’s been two weeks and he misses her so terribly that it’s starting to hurt.  He wants to leave, wants to try and forget, but he’s weak and desperate and can’t bring himself to resist, so before he knows it, he’s climbing into her bed and is hugging her pillow tightly against his chest.  
  
It takes him five minutes flat before he’s drifted off to sleep, finally managing to stay under for more than one hour.  
  
We wakes with a start though, hearing heavy footfalls outside the door.  He reaches under the pillow for his knife, forgetting that he’s in Petra’s room.  He’s on his feet, nimble as a cat, before her door bursts open, a fierce little thing falling through.

“Hello,” he whispers, and they stay like that for a moment - on opposite sides of the room, just breathing - until he’s running at her, full speed, hiking her up and holding her tight as she claws at him, desperate to get closer.  He drops to the floor with Petra still in his arms, and she moulds herself against his torso, wrapping her legs around his waist and threading her fingers through his hair.  His hands find the planes between her shoulder blades and he buries his face against the pulse-point of her neck.  
  
“You’re here,” he says low, “you’re back.”  
  
“I’m here,” she’s gasping, tears dripping off her chin, “I’m back.”  
  
She apologizes for attacking him later that night after he’s met up with Erwin, Hanji, and Mike, and greets the rest of his squad (’ _Your bones are barely healed, I’m such an idiot!'_ and _'Yes, everyone’s fine, we’re all okay, I promise.’_ ), but he merely smiles, happy for the reason.  


 

-x-  


 

She’s bouncing on her toes in front of him, her smile radiant as the sun. Levi slides the band up Petra’s ring finger with shaky hands, realizing that in this moment, he’s the most terrified he’s ever been.  
  
He regrets that no one can be there.  Not Erwin, Mike or Hanji (who’d probably be wailing with mirth right now), not his squad - idiots, the lot of them - not her father, not his mother, not sweet Isabel or Farlan…not a soul.    
  
“Just until we can make it official,” he says, eyes catching the glint of metal in the moonlight.  He picked it up during their last expedition, a flimsy, mouldable piece of silver left behind in the debris.  It was foolish, dangerous even, pretending that they had a future.  
  
She can’t answer though, nearly chokes on her tears when she tries to get the words out, so she grabs his hand for dear life, nodding profusely.  He understands.  


 

-x-

  
  
  
“What’s the number?” she mumbles sleepily, splayed out over his chest so he can feel the delicate swath of hair on her crotch against his own.  She’s all bed-head and pouty lips, and he’s never seen anything so beautiful.  
  
“…how many is it?” she yawns, squishing her face into his skin.  "-expedition-“ her voice is muffled ”-tomorrow?“  
  
He traces his fingers in the fleshy part of her upper thigh, right under the curve of her ass.  
  
”…Five?“ she asks slowly as his fingers move.  ”…Seven?“   
  
He nods.    
  
"The fifty-seventh one?  Really?” she whispers, rubbing her eyes.  He nods again.  
  
“Mhm.”  
  
He kisses her.

 

  
-x-

 

  
It was easy to be empty.  Nothing excited you or disappointed you, no one mattered so nothing was out of reach…you  _did_ simply because you _could_ , and lived because there was no other choice.  What freedom.  He had forgotten what that felt like.  
  
He became as ruthless as ever, skin rough and eyes hard; saw the way it rallied the recruits ( _“A man for the cause!  A man for the cause!  For the cause!”_   they shouted) - his reasons were his own, but if that lie helped them fight, so be it.  
  
“Why do you fight?” Erwin asks one night, already knowing the answer.  They have been fighting alongside one another for many years now.  "If you don’t believe in anything, why are you still here?“  
  
Levi lifts his eyes to his Commander.    
  
"Because she was right.”  
  
Erwin tilts his head, amusingly satisfied.    
  
When they write about him, they say it took 50 titans to kill him.  They say he was the last one standing while Eren Jaeger transformed, bringing them all to victory.  They say he laughed as fell to his knees, steaming flesh sizzling around him, because he died on his own terms.  Not even while taking his last breath, could any titan touch him.  
  
They won’t write about how he died long ago, how amber eyes and copper hair were the cause of it.   
  
They don’t write about how he laughed as he fell to his knees, steaming flesh sizzling around him, because he would finally see her again, leaving behind a more peaceful world as she had wanted.

 

  
-x-


End file.
